The present invention pertains to protective workwear. More specifically, the present invention pertains to surgical gowns and other protective workwear that offer additional contamination protection to users of such workwear, and methods of making and using the same.
With the burgeoning costs of medical care, and the sterilization costs associated with cleansing medical supplies that may have been exposed to blood born pathogens and other contaminants, manufacturers of medical supplies such as medical equipment and protective medical apparel have sought to reduce costs of such supplies to medical service providers. In this regard, medical supply manufacturers have turned to the production of disposable medical supplies so as to reduce the time and labor costs associated with sterilization, and to provide enhanced options to medical service providers for products that need not be reused. For the purposes of this application, the term “medical service provider” is meant to encompass all persons who treat either human or animal patients through the course of their employment or otherwise, or are exposed to blood or other types of low surface tension liquids containing contaminants, during the course of their employment or otherwise.
Further, with the onset of the autoimmune deficiency syndrome (HIV virus) and other blood born pathogens, such as hepatitis, there has been a concentrated effort to provide medical service providers with barrier protection to such viruses. To this end, protective workwear used in medical procedures, i.e., medical garments, such as hospital and surgical gowns, have been made from nonwoven materials instead of traditional woven materials, such as cotton and linen-based fabrics.
In particular, cloth-like multi-layered fibrous nonwoven laminates, films or film laminates, and film and fibrous nonwoven laminate composites, have been produced that offer barrier protection when employed as medical garment material. Such materials have proven in some circumstances, to be liquid-impervious, but breathable. For instance, if such garment materials are made from only fibrous nonwoven materials and/or breathable films, such materials have allowed the passage of gasses in order to provide the necessary thermal comfort to medical service providers, but without sacrificing high levels of protection. If such garments are made from monolithic films or film composites, such garments are often uncomfortable to wear as they restrict the ability of air to easily pass through them. If such garments are made of fibrous material, but are additionally coated with certain film-like coatings to provide a moisture barrier, such materials are likewise uncomfortable to wear. For instance, it is known to coat large portions of hospital or surgeon's garments in the arm and abdominal areas. While such garments may provide large barriers to liquids that may be present in a hospital setting, such garments are often uncomfortable since they fail to breathe in these same large protected areas. Further, if large areas of such garments are coated with a liquid barrier, such film coating may fail to provide the necessary coefficient of friction which is required for the sustained placement of a glove over such materials, as is the practice in a hospital or operating room in which gloves are placed over the sleeves of a surgeon or other medical service provider. Since such liquid repellant coatings are often expensive, such coatings may also add a significant expense to the costs of such garments. Finally, despite these additional coatings, medical personnel often use multiple layers of such nonwoven garments in order to create enhanced barrier protection (that is, they wear several gowns, one over the other). While such a practice may provide the desired barrier protection, such protection is almost always accompanied with a sacrifice in thermal comfort. Therefore, even with improvements in the disposable protective outerwear field, there continues to be a need for apparel with increased barrier protection, without a sacrifice in comfort.
Furthermore, despite the aforementioned improvements in materials, there continues to be breaches of the barriers while they are being used by medical service providers. The breaches can occur for many different reasons, such as a medical garment being caught on a medical instrument or device during a medical procedure, thereby creating a gap between pieces of clothing, or a medical garment actually being pierced during a medical procedure, or because liquid present in a medical setting may wick along a nonwoven material surface, or alternatively in conjunction with a glove line (that is, the inside surface of a glove in contact with a nonwoven material surface) to a location on the medical service provider where there is either no or reduced barrier protection. For instance, as can be seen in FIG. 1, if a medical practitioner is exposed to large amounts of blood during a medical procedure, it is possible for blood to wick along a glove or booty (foot cover for foot protection) line as the case may be, that is adjacent and overlapping a nonwoven garment sleeve or leg, and eventually to the inside surface of the glove or shoe cover. For the purposes of this application, the term “outer surface” shall mean the surface of protective workwear facing away from a person wearing such workwear. The term “inner surface” shall mean the surface of protective workwear facing the body of the person wearing the protective workwear, i.e. facing the skin of the person. Protective workwear may have one or more layers which provide an outer surface, and one or more layers which provide an inner surface.
As can be seen in FIG. 1, a porcelain model arm 10 of a medical service provider's hand has been donned with one surgical glove 20 (easily seen by the rolled up glove edge ridge or “beaded” edge). Prior to the donning of the glove 20, an exemplary sleeve 25 of a medical gown or garment 30 has been placed over the model's wrist, and lower arm area, with the sleeve 25 including a cuff 32. The glove 20 has then been placed over the model, and in an overlapping fashion, over the cuffed lower sleeve portion of the garment 30 Liquid 34 (in this case, 20% isopropyl alcohol and water with red food coloring for ease of visualization, (all with surface tension of approximately 32 dynes/cm, as a preliminary model for blood having a surface tension of approximately 40 dynes/cm)) is shown to have wicked along the outer surface 35 of the nonwoven garment, along the inner surface (not shown) of the glove and up the inner surface of the nonwoven garment. Subsequently, the arm 10 became wet at various locations.
Of course, whether such liquid actually reaches the hand/limb of a medical service provider does depend on a number of factors, such as the practice of a medical service provider to double glove (or double donning), that is, the practice of medical providers to place two or more gloves or other coverings over their hands/limbs. The order of double gloving is also significant. That is, one glove is placed under a medical garment and one glove is placed over a medical garment. Alternatively, two gloves are placed one on top of the other, each over the garment. Other variables include the types of gloves utilized (for instance, the size of the wrist/arm portion, and the composition of the glove) and the tension that they apply to the arm of the user. Additional variables include the liquid that is exposed to the medical service provider, the garment utilized (for instance whether the garment has sleeves and how long such sleeves are, and the composition of the medical garment), the number of garments worn by the medical service provider (for example, two sleeves from two garments worn over the arm) and of course the medical service provider's safety practices in dealing with large volumes of blood and other liquids containing potential contaminants.
Therefore, there is a need for medical and other protective workwear/outerwear apparel which may assist in reducing the possibility of wicking of blood and other liquids along an apparel surface and/or along the inside surface of protective gloves/boots/or other workwear that may be used in conjunction with the protective workwear.